As reliance upon computers becomes increasingly more commonplace, the task of managing data received, generated, modified and/or deleted is greatly enhanced. Frequently a computer user accesses a variety local and shared file systems in connection with a number of utility, entertainment and communication applications (e.g., email accounts, content download sources). With the technological advances and increased reliance upon computing systems, and more particularly in the organization and management of content related to a large number of repositories, there is an ongoing and increasing need to monitor content activity with respect to these repositories. Additionally, there is a substantial need to generate a notification in response to a change in content of these multiple repositories.
Today, computer users often have to manage a variety of content (e.g., photos, email) received from and maintained within many different sources. For example, a user must manage and organize content in accessible local file systems, shared filed systems, multiple email accounts and the like. In order to maintain effective monitoring of these repositories, it would be helpful for the user to receive a prompt upon the arrival and/or change in content. This prompt could be particularly useful to monitor sources including, but not limited to, the World Wide Web, a network “share”, email account(s), or a local machine.
Conventional email applications provide a limited model for monitoring the arrival of new email content. For example, email systems notify a user of newly received content. However, these conventional systems are limited in that they do not address other types of data arrival and/or modification. Today, a particular email system is limited to only notify a user of the arrival of an email within the particular email application.
Accordingly, there is a need for a more centralized system that can provide notifications of receipt and/or modification of content across a user accessible file system and corresponding applications. Furthermore, there is a need for generating these notifications in response to data changes on multiple user machines thereby centralizing delivery of such notifications.